Important Dates:
Monday, January 20 – MLK Day-Student/Teacher Holiday
Friday, January 24 – 5th Grade Picture
Monday, January 27 - 100th Day of School Celebration (kids can dress to look 100 years old)
Friday, January 31 – 1st Jekyll Payment Due
Friday, January 31 – Monthly Book Log Due
Jekyll Parent Meeting
If you were unable to attend the Jekyll meeting, please be sure your child gave you the packet of information sent home last Friday.
Grammar: We have started a unit on Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homonyms (homographs and homophones). The students have learned these skills in their past, but this unit will focus on reviewing them but with harder vocabulary so to expand their vocabulary. This week our focus will be on homographs and editing for homophones. There will be a unit test toward the end of next week.
Vocabular/Spelling-List 7 is in your child’s binder. If you feel your child needs more practice, all of their lists have been uploaded into the website spellingcity.com under Huber. The vocab quiz will be next week.
Writing: We have started our next unit on opinion writing. Last week, we learned how to brainstorm for an opinion writing with a pro/con chart. Then we used the pro/cons to help us develop counterarguments and started learning about the structure of an introduction. This week the kids are debating with me to give them more recess. They’ve written an intro, and tomorrow, we’ll review the structure of the detail paragraphs, adding citations/evidence, and adding transitions. They’ll be adding their opinion rubric to their binders later this week. Before break, they also received back their informational writing test scores from Write Score. Please return these once you sign them for student conferences.
Reading: Last week we started a new unit in reading that includes Dramatic Literature & Folk Lore. Last week we learned the structural elements and how to identify the story elements in dramatic literature (a play). We also learned about tone/mood. Today we started exploring the characteristics and story elements found in folktales (conflict, resolution, theme, tone, and point of view), and later this week, we’ll focus on myths. This week we’ll also start comparing and contrasting two characters in a folktale/myth. Sixth graders are currently learning about the plot diagram and how to organize a folktale/myths plot on one. There will not be a class novel for this unit, so for their January Book Logs, all students will need to read two chapter books of their choice and complete two book reviews. These will be due on Friday, January 31. For sixth graders, one of these two books needs to be chosen from a selection of 6th grade texts in my classroom or pre-approved by me (I’ll initial their Book Log once approved).